Sunday 27th February 2005
Julia Haes writes –
The February lecture to the Warminster branch of National Decorative and Fine Arts Society transported members to Turkey. Sue Rollins took her audience to modern described how it had developed from ancient Constantinople.
This subject fortunately coincides with the Turkish exhibition at The Royal Academy.
This extraordinary city has been the capital of two great empires. It was the Byzantine capital for 1,000 years until Ottoman rule, and it was not until Kemal Ataturk that the powerful dynasÂties finally were at an end.
When Constantine the Great came to power he wanted to promote ChristiÂanity and the obvious place to have as his capital would seem to be Rome. However, the sacred buildings in Rome were on the outskirts of the city and Constantine wanted Christianity to be at the heart of things.
He consequently cast his eye around for a suitable new first city. The ordinary provincial town of Byzantium offered a unique physical landmass with a promontory overlooking waterÂways offering both protection and communication and trade by sea.
So it was, in AD328, sleepy ByzanÂtium became rapidly expanding and sophisticated Constantinople.
Mosaics and wall paintings exeÂcuted over the following hundreds of years go some way to telling the tones of the men who followed on from Constantine. Justinian VI most particularly, Michael, Alexander, Leo and even a female, Zoe, all contribÂuted in some way, mostly positive, to the changing face of the great city.
They built huge churches and ineviÂtably with buildings to the glory of God the architectural scale and decoration were outstanding.
Disastrously the Crusaders set their sights on the city and in 1204 attacked by both land and sea. Although there was a revival, indeed something of a renaissance in the next 200 years, Constantinople never regained its forÂmer status.
The mid 14th century were the twilight years and it was ripe for picking by the Turks. In 1452 the young Sultan Mehmed built a huge fortification on the European side of the Bosphorus overlooking and overÂ, whelming Constantinople and the Marmara Sea.
The Ottomans had superior weapÂonry. including gunpowder and canon. On 29th May 1453 it fell to the OttoÂman Turks and rose from the ashes as Istanbul.
St. Sophia was the first church to be converted to a mosque, and over the next 400 years the architecture and skyline changed to the domes and minarets with which we are familiar. New buildings included Topkapi palace which remained the Sultan’s’ residence for all that time.
The highly decorative surfaces in both paint and tiling were typically nonÂfigurative and highly-coloured. The Isnik tiles with their stylised tulips used a tomato red, amongst the sumptuous blues and turquoises, which have never been replicated. There are 21,000 Isnik tiles in the so-called Blue Mosque, actually Sultan Ahmed I’s mosque: the execution of which in 1620 diminished the famous kilns to 20.
Sultan Abdulmecid topped Topkapi with his own palace, completed in 1856, including a huge crystal chandeÂlier donated by Queen Victoria. This building could compete with any for flamboyance and in common with many, his extravagances bankrupted the family.
The end of the 19th century brought the end of the Sultanate, but it was not until 1923 that Ataturk founded the republic of Turkey, soon to be a memÂber of the EU, sealing its unique position across east and west.